Holon Forum

I tend to quickly forget the circumstances under which I create my comics, so I'm using this thread to remind myself… and to share a bit of background info with you.

I'll try not to post any spoilers here, but if you don't like stories being demystified (by finding out that the author's just human, basically - a fact about me which I'm not good at hiding anyway), then this thread is obviously not for you.

The primary motivation for creating Holon was the fact that the comic I'd been working on previously, signifikat, was coming to an end. I knew that whatever comic I would do next would have to take its place in some way.

My main reason for doing signifikat was to have a spontaneous outlet for ideas which I couldn't incorporate into my other comics. So, my first thought was that the next comic should fulfill that same function. However, it turns out that signifikat had indeed already fulfilled that role in a more finite sense. And so I was free to do something that was a bit more restrictive by being better constructed from the get-go, thus sacrificing some of the spontaneity. It seems signifikat had indeed been therapeutic. The main point - doing something which I couldn'd do with my other comics - still applies to Holon though.

I don't remember how the initial concept came together (should have written that down sooner, eh?) - some of the core concepts must have come to me while I was working on the final chapters (probably the final two) of signifikat, and fused into a more or less coherent whole over some weeks. I do remember some of the specific motivations for coming up with these concepts (since these do still very much apply), but they are as abstract as they are personal, and I won't divulge them here.

Okay, here's a fun fact: For a week or so before starting to really work on it (“really work” meaning: producing an actual page or teaser and creating an account for the comic on drunkduck.com), Holon went by the title of “Electric Ladyland”. It actually makes sense in a way that seems funny and subtle to me. (Sorry that I can't go into that - it would be a major spoiler. But have fun dwelling on it! ^_^) But at the same time, I also had that nagging feeling that this title sounds much too upbeat for what I'm planning. And when it came to chosing a name (necessary for creating a dd account for the comic, which I did one month before I posted the first page), I trusted my instinct and did NOT go with “Electric Ladyland”. Rather, I researched one of the central topics of the comic which I was planning to develop, and tried to find cross-references on the web. Gathering enough of these, something should surely come up that must be usable as a title! And so, I came up with the name, created the account and posted the teaser (which is also the first title page) which went live on the very next day.

My natural way of writing scenes like this one is using a panel for each “moment” (like “the audience starts clapping”, “clapping subsides while the host is talking”, “the kid talks” etc.). It's only in the layout phase that I realize that several panels can and should merge. As Scott McCloud pointed out in “Understanding Comics”, comic book panels don't actually depict moments, but rather, the way readers are guided through them influences the time frame they “read” into each. And despite realizing that reading habits can be exploited this way, I still can't shake the feeling that the resulting panels (or pages) are somehow “unnatural”, in that they represent a situation which isn't “real”. Of course, given the type of comics I'm usually making, you might find my striving for realism pretentious… I guess it's more of a “subjective realism” ;-)

Anyway, that's one of the reasons why I'm much more efficient when writing for myself - I can go back and change the script at any time without having to fight with the writer! ;-)